My mom passed away 5 weeks ago. It wasn't unexpected, but it wasn't imminent, as far as we knew. I had seen her the week before she died, she did comment that she felt 'foggy' and tired, but that was normal for her, at age 92.
She did die quickly and alone, which is what she wanted.
She lived in YB's house and he began to clean her apartment as soon as they had taken her to the mortuary. We sibs met up at the house the next morning, not even 24 hrs later, and YB had bagged up 80% of her stuff and hauled it to the dump. Wow. That's NOT what we sibs spoke of doing, so we were all on edge. YB said "I am POA and this is my job". He was beyond frantic, and I took hold of him and said "Your JOB as POA is OVER. Rick is executor and he needs to be in control. Please let him do his job. Please let us help."
He did calm down a little, but was still very, very frantic and he was hauling furniture out and making rapid, thoughtless decisions.
I realize that after caring for mom, a fairly difficult person to deal with, for 24 years. We were all grieving. My YS was almost hysterical with grief. I just wanted to make sure that mom's things were given to those to whom she'd left them.
We handled the funeral as she would have wanted. Lovely flowers, short service and a super short interment as it was 107 degrees that day.
We'd planned to go back to mom's a week after the funeral and finish (as a family) all the culling and packing. I went up a day early and her place was empty except for tons of books which were being boxed for the Sr Center. My poor YS was falling apart again, she was so upset and so angry.
YB is bossy as all get out, but he DID take on mom's care and refused help from any of us. For that, I am truly grateful.
BUT he has acted as if he were 100% in charge and although my OTHER brother is now in charge, he is also a non-confrontational guy and will not engage in conflict.
I thought I was doing pretty well. I had to have a cardiac ablation the week after the funeral. It was something I simply wasn't going to put off another day. I have not been back to mom's for 3 weeks, healing from this procedure.
I've been having nightmares and anxiety attacks, which are made much worse when I spend any length of time with YB. So I've stayed away.
I have not cried much, nor felt much. I wasn't close to mom and I am a sensitive person--so to lose a parent but feel nothing, really, seems 'wrong'. I was a little bluesy-blue a week ago and couldn't shake it. DH asked 'what is WRONG with you?" and I said "I think I am just grieving, IDK" and he looked at me and said "What are you grieving about?" He literally had FORGOTTEN that mom had died. Told me to 'get over it'.
I can't seem to step out of this weird feeling. I was not on really good terms with mom before she died. She was a trigger for me and most of my visits with her ended in me driving home, crying.
Is this normal? Or is anything normal? I'll never have closure on some important things and that is bothering me. I'm a little angry that YB turned into a bully when we needed him to be kind and sensitive. I'm hurting for my YS who was mom's absolute favorite.
Maybe when the estate is closed out, I will feel some peace. I'm not taking my inheritance, feeling that I do not deserve it and YB could really benefit.
Just rambling. I can usually GIVE advice. I just seem lost right now.
There's a void in your life whether you got on with Mom or not, and it's a little hard to wrap your head around. It hard to realize you've moved up as the oldest generation in the family, too.
Also, when someone dies, there are things to do. You arrange funerals, write notes, clean out and sell the house, settle the estate. Those don't require emotion, so emotions tend to get pushed aside, OR in your brother's case, they get heavily entangled in his rush to get things done as though clearing out the house will assuage his feelings. I think it's better tackle the tasks first, then the emotions will shake themselves out in due course. It's rarely a conscious choice, though.
Eventually you do wrap your head around it all, and you move on with your life.
I'm not quite as understanding about your husband's behavior. And that's all I'm going to say about that; you're not a stupid woman, I'm sure you have good reasons to put up with him, for which you don't owe anyone an explanation.
MidKid, there is no "normal" way to grieve, or to show that grief to the world. You are allowed to be "selfish" with it, if that's what it takes for you to get through it. My mom was "selfish" with her grief when my dad died when I was a kid; I just don't think she had it in her to be able to comfort anyone else, at least not in the beginning. As scripture says, this too shall pass.
I am very glad to hear you took care of your heart procedure and did not put it off!
Please don't consider therapy "wasting money that you could give to a charity". You need to put on your own oxygen mask before you help someone else with theirs's. Whether or not you were close to your mom, you are still going to grieve; you have suffered a loss and the way you lived your life up until that loss is now forever changed. You have to cross this river in order to get to the other side, but you can do things to make that crossing easier.
Prayers for you during this time of loss and sadness.
My mother is declining greatly but lives on. She is in SN and bedbound. She called me yesterday with help from staff. She can't figure out how to use her phone any longer. I was barely able to understand her. I told her a book she wanted was in a drawer and to ask someone to open the drawer to get it. I see her once a week. I don't think she will even ask that of someone but will wait until I come.
Each week I just see suffering and declining. I can't even imagine what I will feel once she is gone as she is so hard to reach now. This has never been a relationship I would have wanted with a mother. We are so different in so many ways and have been for so long. However she is a kind and decent person,just a hard one for me to relate to.
I think we will always grieve what we didn't have yet find it hard to understand those who miss the ideal relationship once their mother has passed. I honestly don't know which is more difficult or how I will feel. I know I have felt burdened for a long time.
Yes, not having a 'good' relationship makes the loss much worse and weirder. I sometimes wish I were as emotionally flat lined as my OS who doesn't show ANY emotions. None.
We went to the mortuary to dress mother for the funeral. OS came, but was in paint covered clothes b/c she had been painting one of her apartments and just came striaght to the mortuary. She looked like a homeless person, in fact, there was a funeral going on and one of the mortuary's workers was kind of shadowing her as she was walking around. She defintiely looked out of place! I had bothered to dress up out of respect for what we were going to do--and she busts into the room where mother is laid out and just grabs the clothing-I put my hand on her and said "T, let's take a minute. I want to say a prayer. This is sacred and not something to race through". She said "But I have to get this apartment done TODAY". Seriously?
So I said a prayer, spent a few minutes with mom and then the SW helped OS and me dress mother and move her to her casket. It was a tender moment and I reflected on it--sister went back to painting and the next day at the funeral had paint all over her arms and Crocs. (Yes, she wore paint covered Crocs to mother's funeral).
Sometimes I think most of my family is just sooooo weird. I'm kind of starting to see the humor in the oddities of the way each of us handled things.
It does take time, I know. I'm just impatient.
Perhaps my feelings were muted because I'd already been subjected to the sudden death of a child. There was NO comparison (for me....I know there is no grief Olympics, some people think the death of a pet is equivalent, etc.).
I remember your telling us how your mother knew about and ignored the abuse you suffered from an older brother. You did far more than what I would have done for someone like that.
So very sorry for your loss of your Mother.
You are a sensitive person, and with that may come blessings and curses. (Not talking about the occult, not magic, not eerie spiritual things here).
Things could be going on right before your eyes that you will not see or understand, but will sense instead, that something was awry. Whatever happened (in addition to the passing of your Mom), it has you lost and feeling weird.
You saw this:
"She lived in YB's house and he began to clean her apartment as soon as they had taken her to the mortuary. We sibs met up at the house the next morning, not even 24 hrs later, and YB had bagged up 80% of her stuff and hauled it to the dump. wow. That's NOT what we sibs spoke of doing, so we were all on edge."
You said: "Is this normal? Or is anything normal? I'll never have closure on some important things and that is bothering me."
No, YB's behavior was not normal. He was frantic and making rapid, thoughtless decisions. His actions are similar to someone who was trying to hide something.
You can think on it for a brief period of time. Maybe acknowledge something went on but there is nothing to be done about it now. Maybe discuss with Rick, briefly, if he has discovered anything. But then, you might need to let it go. Simply acknowledging the facts may help you.
Your Mom, did however, live to the age of 92. God Bless her. Again, sorry for your loss, and that you are hurting.
You don't want to be someone even 5 years from now, trying to figure out what YB did, what he tried so frantically to hide.
I hope peace for you, the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.
BTW, what happened could be as simple as a drug issue. If you were in the presence of drugs, or someone on drugs, you could go home, feel weird, have nightmares, then one day, wake up and realize it was not normal behavior(s) and understand what it was-that feeling.
Your grief journey is in it's early stages. Be kind to yourself even if others aren't. Your family has lots of issues and you are inevitably involved. Do what you need to do for you.
Almost anything is normal for grief. And each journey is unique in it's details. The first year has many milestones. Do take care of your health. You have been through enough.
P.S. My husband died unexpectedly in June, though the sitution was less complicated than yours. I'm trying to follow my own advice, and also the advice I heard from another widow, which is to "never say no to an invitation."
Yes, DH is probably 'on the spectrum'--sometimes I am amazed at the lack of compassion and emotional connection he does not have with others. I cut him a LOT of slack.
I'm sorry for the loss of your DH. I fully expect to be a 'young' widow and hope I can do so with grace and dignity. I do wish my DH was generally kinder, though. He's 70, so that's not likely to happen.
Besides your long list of other stressors, this is still your MOTHER that you lost. Any child, no matter how old, could, you’re darn right, still be grieving at 5 weeks!
A hundred fifty years ago, we might have worn black for a whole year, then purple, for another 6 months.
Your husband is WAY off with the comment that you should get over it. I’d love to give him a nice SMACK for that. Let’s see if he feels off when HIS mother passes. No matter how awful she is. I predict he will be a basket case.
Give yourself permission to grieve for AT LEAST 18 months. There is a lot to grieve for.
And, remember, YOU MATTER.
I'll give you my address and you can come over and smack him. I often call my DIL and tell her to go smack my son when he's rude. She just does it FOR me, my private little hit man. And she's smacked my DH and told him he's a jerk many times. THAT resonates with him--since he adores her.
DH just cannot handle ANY emotions of mine. Only 'content' and 'happy'.
I know he has that in him, he just doesn't want anyone to think he's emotional. The last dinosaur like this, I hope. I sure don't see it in my Son or sons in law.
5 kids, a MIL who hates you, a "DH" who throws you under the bus on a near daily basis, cancer and cardiac issues...
Plus, you hold yourself to a high standard as a person of faith. You don't expect much of anyone else--your parents allowed your OB to abuse you, your husband doesn't provide emotional support--but you give and give and give, to us as well as to your family and your community.
Who to YOU talk to? I know you've got someone doing med management, but do you have a talk therapist? I finally admitted to myself a year ago that I was going down the tubes and signed up to do telehealth sessions with a trained a certified SW. Slow work, but it’s helping...
I probably AM expecting too much of myself, but as the 'glue' that is going to try to hold our family together, I do feel a sense of imminent failure--I could barely get the family to meet once a year for an hour or two--and I had to use guilt to get them to come to parties. IDK what the future holds. We are closing out the estate in a week, and already my YS has said she and her DH will not come to dinner with the other sibs--just hand her her check!
Ah well! If that's how she wants to be, then let it be, right?
I do have a talk therapist--she's not on my insurance and paying $250 for 50 minutes of talk--IDK, I probably do need a tune up, but for $250 I could give that to a charity that would do far more good in shoring me up!
Yeah--it's been a rough couple of years. And. no, Dh is really of no help. That hasn't changed!
You've been through a lot. It is grief even if it does not feel like it and it will ebb and flow. A death or illness will always raise issues that may long have been buried to the surface, you brother being so used to being the caregiver, feeling he needs to finish out his role or duties such as he sees them whether they are or are not. Maybe trying to close out his role as fast as possible made him make those hasty decisions with the house contents.
I'm sorry your DH reacted in this way, that must have been hard. He may have often seen the impact your visits with your mom had on you (ending up in tears) and not understanding that one can have a difficult relationship with someone and still grieve for the loss.
You seem to show a lot of compassion toward your siblings and I guess my only advice would be to continue to do so and most importantly compassion for yourself. Be gentle and loving with yourself and no need to just "get over it". That is impossible. Don't be surprised if a certain event (like the estate settlement) does not bring an expected "closure". I don't know that there is such a thing!
Nothing is normal. Be gentle with yourself.
Midkid, you are dealing with a shocking and unexpected loss, and you are dealing with a family attempting each in his or her own way to deal with the same thing, and deal with all those around who are dealing.
Oh, hey add in a dollop of all you have gone through in the last years. Then add in heart issues????? Oh, dear, oh my. Did the ablation AT LEAST burn out that little arrhythmia or whatever they were after? Didn't work for my partner; and I've been in Fib for 20 years!
So, given all this (and grief is harder when a relationship was unsettled; easier in my opinion to grieve my near perfect parents), I think you are doing GREAT. Just great.
Let the feelings come. Consider them weather fronts. One day stormy, one day overcast, one day a bit of sun, one day hot and one day cold. Let those weather fronts come and go and pray that the hurricanes are rare, the earthquakes hold off.
Love out to you. You're doing fine. My heart out to the rest of them, as well. And oh, by the by, you are so right. The executor is the one to take this on now, difficult as that is for the caregiver to understand after all this time.
Best out to you.